OCT’s one-man show offers a singular theatrical experience
A lintel is a strip of wood or stone you typically see atop a doorway. The seldom thought of framework helps to prevent a building from falling on us as we enter and exit.
Alex Dagg (The Librarian) rehearses “Underneath The Lintel” at the Ocala Civic Theatre on East Silver Springs Boulevard in Ocala on February 28. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette]
“Mrs. Maisel”-esque wit adds some sweet cream on top, providing ample comic relief with laugh-out-loud moments and a touch of bittersweet pathos.
“I have loved this play since I saw it in October of 2001,” said Ocala Civic Theatre Artistic Director Katrina Ploof. “The script has stayed with me and it’s always been my dream to produce it.”
The singular one-man show stars Ocala-based actor Alex Dagg, who deftly portrays an eccentric Dutch-Jewish librarian. Wearing patches on his elbows, Dagg looks like a middle-aged professor but comports himself with the weariness of a man who has lived for centuries. His very identity drifts from the literal to allegorical as he waxes philosophical and takes the audience on a madcap journey.
Set in the dilapidated workroom of an old library in Hoofddorp, Netherlands, “Underneath the Lintel” starts with our unnamed protagonist laboring overtime. The year is 1986, before the days of Internet-based record-keeping. Scrawling the words “An Impressive Presentation of Life’s Evidences” on the chalkboard, he talks about a book retrieved in the night slot that is 113 years overdue and shares his affection for a time-stamper worn around his neck that “contains every birth in this room … and death.”
The unfashionable lateness of the book piques the librarian’s curiosity and riles him up. (Playwright Glen Berger cleverly lampoons the librarian trope and slings other meta-references at us like a tennis ball launcher.) A trip around the world ensues to seek out the mysterious borrower, who signed for the tattered travel guide with the initial “A.” and jotted notes in every language in the margins.
Like the clues left by the mysterious borrower, playwright Berger drops hints as to what the librarian’s journey entails on an existential level. “I was here” is oft-repeated throughout the performance and the librarian also sings “We’re here because we’re here,” a World War I anthem sung to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne.”
“We are all crickets smothered in dustballs behind couches, destined to be forgotten,” the librarian says before discussing an 1887 flood in Honan, China, that drowned 3 million people.
He goes on to say that “it may have been 3 million and one people who drowned, by the way, but what’s that one to anyone but that one. If it isn’t someone you know, then it’s all just…behind the couch.”
Actor Dagg shared that the passage is among his favorite lines in the play and said it reminded him of current events.
“I think ‘the crickets behind the couches’ is a huge statement, especially even given what’s going on right now, when we think about Russia and Ukraine,” he commented. “When we look at world events, we have empathy, we recognize it, but we don’t really connect with it because we don’t know the people involved.”
Dagg, who recently appeared in OCT’s productions of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” praised the openness of director Anthony C. Daniel. The nationally accomplished thespian’s guidance was crucial to him.
“I’ve enjoyed working with Anthony,” Dagg said, adding that the director was receptive to his ideas and worked with him “in a collaborative process.”
“Underneath the Lintel” premiered in 1999 in the Yale Summer Cabaret. Richard Schiff, best known for playing Toby Ziegler on “The West Wing,” starred in the one-man show in the U.S and Europe.
OCT’s production features the expert behind-the-scenes work of scenic designer William Spratt, composer Philip King, stage manager Sarah Leppert, costume designer Eryn Brooks Brewer and dialect coach Lori Engler, who transformed Dagg into an Old World librarian with a Dutch accent.
Dagg also shared that he’d done a fair amount of traveling himself. His past performances have taken him to 35 states and he has even worked as an “ice-cream ambassador,” handing out free samples of frozen treats.
“No matter who you are,” he said, “when you’re giving away free ice cream, everyone’s going to come up and want to talk to you. So, you end up meeting interesting people and you see how they live their lives. Imagine if we could all do this internationally. Imagine what we’d find out.”
“Underneath the Lintel” runs March 3-20. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays; 2 and 7:30 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are $30 for adults and $15 for ages 18 and younger. Call (352) 236-2274 or visit ocalacivictheatre.com for tickets and information.
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